LISTEN to Rick Pitino’s Interview with Terry Meiners

An afternoon of breaking news surrounding the Louisville Sex Scandal was capped off with an interview between Rick Pitino and Terry Meiners on News Radio 840 WHAS.

Even though Terry and Rick are friends, it was not friendly conversation. Terry asked tough questions, and Pitino answered (most of) them firmly. Pitino doesn’t plan on stepping down, and he didn’t sound like he was planning on missing any games. It was a strange interview, but a MUST LISTEN. It’s one of those interviews that will be talked about for years to come.

I’m sure you have plenty of thoughts. Feel free to share them in the comments section before Matt shares his on Periscope tonight at 10:00.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Rick Pitino and Andre McGee for continuing to reset the bar of University expectations regarding appropriate sexual behavior lower and lower. You two are my heroes! Don’t worry, y’all can always have a few of my season basketball passes and access to a private shower or two.

Do you honestly think this will help the university and your collaborative programs? Its like the pot calling the kettle Black! You took off as did Pitino for glorious pro teams and the only thing I see as reciprocal is your dual bad judgment, ineptness, and self-control!. If both had the perseverance to stay your course your moral and ethical behaviors might not have been called into question. As hands on and micro managing as your two personalities dictate it is highly disputable you did not know the depths you sink to achieve. Rick did the same thing when coming to Uof L in shame or at least an error in judgement. There is more –pics and proof.
Anchorage in the Italian restaurant. ….you were seen. Petrino obviously felt his behavior would be accepted when he snailed home. I have more contempt for the football program it is the ongoing perception of the ‘basketball coach and what is accetably condoned. You slid in on a prayer —both of you and Your Jurich’s moral practice is contemptible. Dennie Crumb and wade Huston were our pillars of good taste. So was the Michigan coach. Jurich is the one to go he bad judgement has been questionable since Crume left or was forced down.

My first thought is why does he continue to do interviews? You would think following his “I’m like the Pope” interview from yesterday, he would stay away from a microphone. I am guessing he thinks this will bring him sympathy, but far from it. I think Terry asked hard questions and Pitino did his best to answer, but I don’t think it advanced his cause.

In coming days it will be found that nothing wrong was done. Matty Bangs can suck my dirty bird. Pay Pal Cal is going to be gone real soon after the fallout with the Haitian refugee. You will have banners vacated, mark my word.

I want to say something but I want everybody to know that I am not a birds fan, I love the CATS. But if Pitino truly did not know, or if there is no evidence to prove otherwise, I don’t believe that there is any justification for his dismissal from the program. This has been happening a lot more regularly with college coaches being held responsible for actions within their program that they are unaware of, but it is completely unfair. If any person wants to blame Pitino directly, (unless new facts come out) they are essentially saying that he should be punished for not micromanaging his employees. Those people under him were hired to do a job just like he was, and the approval of their hire came from positions above Pitino; by either directly approving the hire or indirectly by empowering the head coach to make a sound decision. Any person with even a fraction of business savvy understands that micromanaging your employees leads a loss of time, money, and personal life; you cannot expect anybody to check and recheck every little thing that each one of their employees does. If people calling for his head are making that argument, then they could make just as easy of an argument for firing the AD or the president. Yea, he hired McGee, but Jurich hired Pitino. Is he expected to micromanage him and all of the other head coaches employed under him? NO, of course not, that’s ridiculous. That would make his job way too hard. There’s not enough time to do that. Anybody in any position of power is very very busy, and those people have to make a list of priorities. They accomplish everything that they can in a reasonable amount of time, and then delegate their less important tasks to employees. I don’t think checking who goes in and out of his players dorms on a daily basis is very high on a giant mountain of work required to be a D1 head coach. If your going to fire a coach for making an incompetent hire, fire the AD for hiring a coach who doesn’t have good judgment, or the president for the same reason. Rick Pitino is innocent until proven guilty. Yea the guy’s made some mistakes in his life, but how many of us have our lives under a microscope like him? Rick Pitino has done more for wildcat basketball than anybody that visits this glorified fan site. We’re fans. He raised a national championship for our basketball program, and is hated for making a couple of decisions that best took care of his family?? Grow up people. Drew Franklin, this whole situation is not funny and neither are you. It’s a very sad situation that is going to affect many peoples lives in a negative way. You’re laughing at a few people who are not educated enough to know the wrong in paying for sex, and a woman who solicits sex (including the bodies of her own daughters) to make money and become famous through extortion. That chick doesn’t need to be celebrated, our laughed about. She needs a psyche ward. I know you’re not alone, but your posts this week have been annoying as hell, and your acting like a little kid that is watching one of his siblings get in trouble. I get that by saying all this about the micromanaging I am saying that the better alternative is to allow coaches who are good a covering their tracks to get away from situations like this unscathed. But this is the world that we live in, and you can’t penalize someone until proven guilty. Otherwise punish everyone the same all the way to the top. As of right now we are just drawing some arbitrary line that punishes/criticizes the first person above an employee who did wrong (Pitino, Boeheim, Brown, Clipart, Williams) but not the people above them. It’s like, oh your the first person who didn’t know what was going on and your in trouble, but the next couple of guys that “didn’t know what was going on,” we’ll let them go.. They couldn’t have known or have any responsibility in the situation. Best wishes to the Pitino family as they go through another harshly criticized, highly televised time. As always, Cats by 90

Let me just say this first – I’m a diehard Cards fan, have been all my life. I have had season tickets since 1896. I was there for the Kragthorpe days.

But the Louisville program is nothing more than a cesspool of sleaze and corruption, starting at the top with Jurich. UK has owned Rick and his merry band of johns to the point its not even a rivalry anymore. And to top it off, their delusional fans have done nothing but talk shit at all times and ruine our beloved KSR with their ridiculous drivel. So this is karma. Plain and simple. And revel in it BBN – payback is a mofo. The shitheads at Louisville will get everything they deserve, and I couldn’t be happier about it. #L1CWHORE 😉

Good God man and I thought I wrote long posts before. Obviously Rick Pitino means a lot to you and I’m sorry for that alone. I would have told you that even before the shit hit the fan.

Couple friendly suggestions:
Paragraphs help break segments of your argument into coherent parts for people to read.
Editing cuts out the shit you don’t need to repeat.
Remember, it’s a message board, not a book, people want 15 second clips of information (think of your hero when you type)

Oh, and dude, Rick Pitino sucks as a person, he’s always sucked. I haven’t heard this much BS in consecutive answers since the last presidential election. Find somebody else to love. Don’t be gullible, he knew about this, he knows about everything, remember? His words, not mine.

I’m going to have to disagree with you on this point. His actual job is specifically to manage the department and the employees. How he chooses to do that is his own business. The only way I would say that it’s not his fault is if the alleged strippers were being provided by a booster or someone that was not hired by him or his staff AND no one on his staff knew about the events.

I am a manager at my work and I am responsible for decisions and actions by all those in the department under me. It’s difficult and frustrating many times trying to “herd the cats”, but I’m going to be ultimately held responsible for them so I have to do it.

Maybe I am a loser.. Wouldn’t want to spoil your fun. Probably don’t have many more important things to do than poke at the dirty birds. It’s pretty easy though, I promise they don’t need your help. Maybe your an IGNORANT loser. Enjoy your criticisms though. Doesn’t take away from the fact that what I said was right.

This interview gave HOFHCRP every opportunity to limbo under the guilt bar. Meitner asked questions, but not tough ones not did not follow up or drill down Rp’s responses. There were many questions he could have followed up with, but he let slide.
This was a “everyone feel sorry for Rick” interview, by his very good friend, with questions designed to provide doubt. This is done frequently by legal teams for “damage control”.
I do agree on one issue though, Rick said he needed to take the blame for not educating his players. Well, if that is true, ultimately, this is totally on him. Something Meiner failed to pursue.
I feel bad for the decent folks caught up in this. But to those like the trolls that keep showing up here talking bravo Sierra about Cal, Karma, has you by the short hairs, and I hope it keeps rolling down hill.

Bill, it’s not arbitrary from the NCAA point of view. In the past, they treated things they way you suggest and the coach would make sure he had a fall guy on the staff, which made it hard to determine who really knew and who used a patsy. The NCAA now holds the coaches accountable for anything which happens on their watch. If nothing else, it makes coaches pay closer attention to what is happening in their program. Nothing arbitrary about it, it’s the current rules under NCAA guidelines.

Bill,
I work for a large organization that has strict guidelines. Any person at any level has accountability. Your division goes upside down, under your watch, they typically move you out, and fid the person that does not put the company in bad standing. Bill I appreciate your passion, but the bottom line he is the head coach. His people did things that were wrong and is going to bring shame to the program, the school and the community.
If it is decided he stays, that says a lot about what is acceptable from U of L. If you think for a minute recruiting is tough now, and this might be the result of Cipher’s scandal, after this it will be impossible for Rick to Recruit going forward. Honestly, who would want their child to play at such a slimy school?
The lack of players now shows you where he has taken the program. It will get worse. Much worse.
Keeping Rick will be the worst thing to do to those kids. I do not envy Louisville on the road this year. YUM will be empty for home games.
Go ahead and keep him. Your loss.

Keeping Rick? They won’t be able to keep Jurich. No way he can survive whores paid for by one of his primary money programs. They’re all dun kids. Big Tommy and Rick had better be spooning one another right now because they’re both at the falls in the same barrel. Possibly even Ramsey. And you’d better believe Bobby P should be quite concerned about job security once Tommy is gone.

True Story, I would agree if it was a respectable school but come on, this is UL. They would probably be better off getting rid of Pitino but remember Jurich is win at all costs. And I bet they keep Jurich and Ramsey.

Since this interview is about Rick Pitino … I will follow my standard approach and talk about how this interview reminds me of the movie, “My Cousin Vinny!” Which, or course, reminds me of the time I played cards with someone from that movie (click here for more worthless stuff), who I can’t remember. But THAT reminds me of when I used to be in politics and had to deal with this kind of stuff all the time. You know … the forgetting who you are playing cards with thing?

Now, what were we talking about??????

Hang on, I am going to write down this while interview, plagiarize it and pretend it was me doing the interview … and then ignore it and talk about mums. Not the mother kind of “mums” … the flower kind. Which reminds me of the time …

I’m a UK grad, and I hate UofL as much as anyone. I work with obnoxious UofL fans, and it’s frickin awesome to see them squirm and make excuses about this scandal. However, I find this entire situation more sad than funny. I have a 17yo son, and thinking of these recruiting trips makes me sick…I mean really, most of these recruits had been driving for less than a year…they were still kids!

In general, I would much rather UofL have a strong program and win a bunch of games, and then watch the UofL fans cry after Cal takes Rick to the woodshed each a year. Everyone may think this scandal is the greatest thing ever, but it was much, much sweeter to see the UofL fans’ faces after we beat them in the Final Four in 2012.

Rick Pitino is telling the truth. He didn’t have knowledge of these gross actions. However, the data will show there were unacceptable violations of NCAA rules. Unfortunately for Rick Pitino – his legacy will end with a vacated NCAA title and years of probation. He doesn’t deserve the punishment but that’s how this thing works. Thanks for the memories – the 1996 and 1997 UK teams are still my favorites.

Maybe I missed it, but if you had top notch recruits on your campus, would you not know what they were doing every second of their visit? Perhaps I am naive, but as a coach you have gone to in home visits, met the family, visited the kids coaches…etc. I don’t understand how you can be unaware of this kind of activity happening. I think coach Pitino is a great coach, but I call bs on not knowing this was going on.

So Lyle has confirmed Hookergate. Pitino is toast.I didn’t blame him when he went to Boston. Hell I wouldn’t blame Cal if he went to one of the most storied NBA teams in history. I expect my coach to be confident, and wanting to be challenged.

But when Pitino went to Louisville, he misread the UK fan base badly. He, in his arrogance, assumed UK fans would welcome him back as a beloved ex-coach. And i think he would have been if he had gone to any other program, even IU to some extent. That he wasn’t has eaten at his ego for this past decade. He began making it personal, and getting beat like a red headed mule by Cal didn’t help his ego, and so he started becoming more and more reckless, trying to get that which he craves even more than hummers…adulation from the people of Kentucky. Instead, he has reaped just scorn and derision.

So Pitino thinks stepping down is taking the cowardly way out? I think pretending the buck doesn’t stop with you is taking the cowardly way out. Isn’t he the one in charge of insuring his program is run in an appropriate manner? This happened in the dorm repeatedly for four years, yet they claim no knowledge of it. That’s bs and everyone knows it. There’s no doubt this goes clear to the top at UofL. Clean house UofL fans. You deserve far better.

Pure Pitino. He is more concerned with his Media Persona that what is best for the University.

If these allegations are proven, he should step down, not as a coward, but as someone who values the Institution more than his personal reputation.

I will always be a fan of Rick Pitino as I lived through the Eddie Sutton years and watched Rick pull UK out of the gutter. Like many UK fans he was on a pedestal until the Sypher scandal. I still think he treated Winston Bennett way too harshly, and at the end of the day one must realize, his UofL program is a joke which must be cleaned up for the sake of the University.

It hurts us all. The cardinals are a big part of our experience and any shame to the program is devastating to us all. My hope is that this is not true, but my expectation is that something actually did occur.

Since the buck stops with Pitino, whether he knew of anything occurring or not according to 90% of the UK fans on this site, does that mean Cal is to blame for the two vacated final fours or is that different?

I, for one, think that Miss Powell did the right thing to go public with her her book. She probably saved her LIFE !! Had people with power and money (and strong ties to Uof L) had wind of her intentions to go public with such a devastating scandal before publication, I fear she would have lost her life. Now at least her notoriety is a level of protection ! All eyes , including the law, are upon her.